Troubleshooting free/busy issues in Exchange hybrid environment

Describes how to troubleshoot free/busy issues that may occur in a hybrid deployment of an on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Exchange Online in Office 365

Who is it for?

Tenant administrators. Elevated access will be required for many of the steps.

How does it work?

We’ll begin by asking you the issue you are facing. Then we’ll take you through a series of troubleshooting steps that are specific to your situation.

Estimated time of completion:

30-60 minutes.

1

Welcome to the hybrid environment free/busy troubleshooter

Select the option that best describes the issue that you are facing:

Note: If you want to review how free/busy works in a hybrid deployment, click the "I want to better understand how Hybrid Free/Busy is supposed to work" option.

My Cloud user cannot see Free/busy for an on-premises user

My On-premises user cannot see Free/busy for a cloud user

I want to see some common tools for troubleshooting Free/busy issues

I want to better understand how Hybrid Free/Busy is supposed to work

0

Welcome to the hybrid environment free/busy troubleshooter

Select the option that best describes the issue that you are facing:

Note: If you want to review how free/busy works in a hybrid deployment, click the "I want to better understand how Hybrid Free/Busy is supposed to work" option.

My Cloud user cannot see Free/busy for an on-premises user

My On-premises user cannot see Free/busy for a cloud user

I want to see some common tools for troubleshooting Free/busy issues

I want to better understand how Hybrid Free/Busy is supposed to work

0

On-premises Exchange server version in your environment

To better understand how Hybrid Free/Busy is supposed to work, review the following flowcharts. Select the version of the on-premises Exchange server that matches your environment:

Exchange 2010/2013

Exchange 2007

Exchange 2003

0

The Exchange 2010/2013 free/busy workflow

The following diagram shows the Exchange 2010/2013 free/busy workflow:

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

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The Exchange 2007 free/busy workflow

The following diagram shows the Exchange 2007 free/busy workflow:

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

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Exchange 2003 free/busy workflow

The following diagram shows the Exchange 2003 free/busy workflow:

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Does Free/busy work on-premises?

Log on to an on-premises user's mailbox and then try to view the Free/Busy for another on-premises user. This test is to verify that you do not have any issues with availability information retrieval within your on-premises environment.

Were you able to see the Free/busy information?

Yes

No

0

You have an on-premises free/busy issue

This troubleshooter is used to diagnose free/busy issues in a hybrid environment. This does not seem to be your immediate issue. After the on-premises free/busy issues are addressed, restart this troubleshooter.

In Windows PowerShell , run the following command: Get-OrganizationRelationship -Identity "Exchange Online to On Premises Organization Relationship" | FL

Check DomainName value. The vanity domain (yourdomain.com) should be present.

If the DomainName value is missing your vanity domain, run the following command: Set-OrganizationRelationship -Identity "Exchange Online to On Premises Organization Relationship" –DomainName yourdomain.com

Cloud user cannot see On-premises user’s Free/Busy

On the on-premises Exchange hybrid deployment server, open Exchange Management Shell, and then run the following cmdlet: Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | FL Name,Server,externalURL

If the ExternalURL is missing on the Exchange hybrid deployment server, run the following cmdlet: Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory -Identity "ServerName\EWS (Default Web Site)" -ExternalUrl https://mail.contoso.com/ews/exchange.asmx

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Cloud user cannot see On-premises user’s Free/Busy

Verify that the Microsoft Exchange Web Services (EWS) are resolvable and there are no firewall issues.

Check IIS logs on the Exchange 2010/2013 CAS server(s) to confirm that Web Services request is being received by this server. To do this, follow these steps:

In the latest IIS log file, search for "exchange.asmx/wssecurity”. The following screen shot shows an example of the request in the IIS log:

If you do not see any entry for "exchange.asmx/wssecurity"in your on-premises Exchange 2010/2013 hybrid deployment server, the firewall may be pointing to a wrong CAS server, or you may have pre-authentication configured on the firewall. For information about how to bypass firewall pre-authentication, see How to Configure TMG for Office 365 (Exchange) Hybrid deployments.

Cloud user cannot see On-premises user’s Free/Busy

On the on-premises Exchange hybrid deployment server, run the following command in Exchange Management Shell: Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | fl name,server,externalURL,ExternalAuthenticationMethods

If the WSSecurity is missing for ExternalAuthenticationMethods is missing on Exchange hybrid deployment server run the following command: Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory -Identity "ServerName\EWS (Default Web Site)" –WSSecurityAuthentication $true

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Cloud user cannot see On-premises user’s Free/Busy

Verify Org Relationship settings are configured correctly to enable Free/busy for the users.

If a value must be changed, use the "set-OrganizationRelationship"cmdlet to fix the property. For more information about syntax and options, see Set-OrganizationRelationship.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

On-Premises user cannot see cloud user's Free/busy

On which version of Exchange is the on-premises users' mailbox located?

Exchange 2003

Exchange 2007

Exchange 2010

Exchange 2013

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Can you reproduce the issue by using an on-premises Exchange 2010 mailbox?

Log on to Outlook or an OWA client as a user who has an Exchange 2010 on-premises mailbox.

Create a new meeting request and add a cloud user to the meeting request.

When you view the scheduling assistant do you see hash marks for the cloud user?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Verify that there is no hard-coded Public folder routing that would prevent the legacy Free/busy request from succeeding.

Note: This is not a common issue.

Verify that the ms-Exch-Folder-Affinity-List attribute on the Exchange Server 2003 properties has Exchange 2010 ObjectGUID with the lowest cost (The format of this property is as follows: {guid of server},cost).

Verify that ms-Exch-Folder-Affinity-List value is set with Exchange 2010 objectGUID. If the Exchange 2010 objectGUID is not listed on ms-Exch-Folder-Affinity-List, you can add it by using the format: {guid of server},cost.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Is the External Free/busy present and replicated correctly?

Add the OU=EXTERNAL (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT) public folder. To do this, follow these steps:

Connect to the on-premises Exchange 2010 SP1 or later public folder server.

Open Windows PowerShell.

Run the following cmdlet: Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Powershell.Setup

Run the following cmdlet: Install-FreeBusyFolder

Note: The OU=EXTERNAL (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT) public folder should only be present on Exchange 2010 servers and NOT replicated to Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Verify that the recipient object on the on-premises server has the correct LegacyExchangeDN configured.

Every cloud mailbox will have a corresponding on-premises Mail enabled object. For this kind of Free/busy query we use the LegacyExchangeDN to route our request to the Proper Public folder server. To make sure that this value is accurate, follow these steps:

On the Exchange 2010 server, run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell: Get-RemoteMailbox Username |fl LegacyExchangeDN where username is the name of the cloud user that you are trying to see free/busy information for.

In the results, verify that the External (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT) is in the path. For example, the results should show the path as follows:

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Verify Permissions on Public folder.

To use the Exchange 2010 Public Folder Management Console to change the client permissions for the External (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT) free/busy replica, follow these steps:

Start the Exchange 2010 Exchange Management Console.

In the console tree, click Toolbox.

In the result pane, click Public Folder Management Console, and then in the action pane, click Open Tool. The Public Folder Management Console appears.

In the Public Folder Management Console, in the action pane, click Connect to Server.

In Connect to server, click Browse to view a list of the available Mailbox servers that contain a public folder database.

In Select Public Folder Servers, select the Exchange 2010 server. Click OK, and then click OK.

In the Public Folder tree, move to System Public Folder -- > SCHEDULE+ FREE/BUSY

In the Result pane, right-click EX:/O=FIRST ORGANIZATION/OU=EXTERNAL (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT), and then click Properties.

On the Permissions tab, confirm that Edit all permission level is selected for the Default user:

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2003 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Is the arbitration mailbox missing or corrupted?

The Arbitration mailbox can be edited by using ADSIEdit. The federated.email account should be located in the default users container of Active Directory for the Exchange 2010 domain.

Use one of the following options:

Use adsiedit.

Connect to the default naming context in Active Directory.

Browse to the Users container and view the properties of the federatedemail account.

Change the proxyaddress attributes of the account to either have ONE of the SMTP addresses already federated, or add the already existing proxy address namespace present into the federation trust.

From the Exchange Server 2003 open "Active Directory Users and Computers."

Move to the Users container and right-click the FederatedEmail account - then click Properties.

If you go to the email addresses tab that you can add another proxy address to match the federation namespaces already configured, or add the pre-existing primary SMTP namespace to the federation trust.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2007 user cannot access cloud user's free/busy

Can you repro with an on-premises Exchange 2010 or 2013 mailbox?

Log on to your Outlook or OWA client as a user who has an Exchange 2010 or 2013 on-premises mailbox.

Create a new meeting request and add a cloud user to the meeting request.

When you view the scheduling assistant do you see hash marks for the cloud user?

Yes

No

0

Your Exchange 2007 user cannot access cloud user's free/busy

Check the availability address space to make sure that it has the correct settings. This might be a misconfiguration of the AvailabilityAddressSpace. Check that ProxyURL value on AvailabilityAddressSpace configuration match the InternalURL of the Exchange 2010/2013 CAS Web Service virtual directory. To do this, follow these steps:

On the on-premises server, run the following commands in Exchange Management Shell:Get-AvailabilityAddressSpace | FL ProxyUrl Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | FL Server,InternalUrl

If the ProxyURL and InternalURL values do not match, run the following commands:Remove-AvailabilityAddressSpace -Identity ‘contoso.mail.onmicrosoft.com' Add-AvailabilityAddressSpace -ForestName contoso.mail.onmicrosoft.com' -AccessMethod 'InternalProxy' -UseServiceAccount 'True' -ProxyUrl https://cas2010.contoso.com/ews/exchange.asmx

If the ProxyURL and InternalURL values do match, make sure that you can access the URL from the Exchange 2007 CAS server. To do this, move to ProxyURL of the AvailabilityAddressSpace from CAS 2007. Authenticate with the Exchange 2007 source mailbox credential. The expected result is as follows:

Note: The InternalURL of the Exchange 2010/2013 CAS Web Service virtual directory should differ from Exchange 2007 CAS Web Service virtual directory.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Exchange 2010/2013 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Log on to an on-premises user's mailbox and then try to view the Free/Busy for another on-premises user. This test is to verify that you do not have any issues with availability information retrieval within your on-premises environment.

Were you able to see the Free/busy information?

Yes

No

0

On-premises user cannot see cloud user's Free/busy

Determine what error message you are receiving from OWA.

Use the affected user's account to log on to the on-premises OWA.

Create a new meeting request, and then add the on-premises user to the meeting.

When the Hash marks are returned rest the pointer over them to display the error message. Note the error code number in the error message.

Select the appropriate error message in the following list to help narrow the troubleshooting steps that you must follow:

If a value must be changed, use the "set-OrganizationRelationship"cmdlet to fix the property, For more information about the syntax and options to do this, see Set-OrganizationRelationship.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Exchange 2010/2013 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Make sure that the time set on your server is not inaccurate by more than 5 minutes. If the server time is more than 5 minutes difference from real time, the communications with the federation gateway become invalid. This causes free/busy to fail.

Exchange 2010/2013 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Determine whether the correct target address is specified on the MEU on-premises. Every Cloud Mailbox will have a corresponding on-premises object. This object must have the correct remote routing address (also known as the target address) specified. The remote routing address should contain a domain name similar to TenantName.Mail.OnMicrosoft.com.

To verify that the remote routing address is set, follow these steps:

On the Exchange 2010 server or Exchange 2013 server, run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell: Get-RemoteMailbox Username |fl RemoteRoutingAddress, where username is the name of the cloud user that you are trying to see free/busy information for.

Verify that the address contains TenantName.Mail.OnMicrosoft.com

Note: If you did not use the Hybrid configuration wizard, the domain name should reflect the remote routing domain that you have selected.

Did this solve your issue?

Yes

No

0

Exchange 2010/2013 user cannot see cloud user's free/busy

Verify that the Org Relationship settings are configured correctly to enable Free/busy for the users.